How does gender impact social intelligence and career?

Social intelligence is the capacity to know oneself and to know others. Social intelligence (SI), is mostly learned develops from experience with people and learning from ups and downs in social settings. It is more commonly referred to as 'tact', 'common sense', or 'street smarts'. And career is an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person's life and with opportunities for progress. The idea of relating these topics to gender is to ascertain how far we have come in eliminating the gender bias in the above mentioned fields.

Against: No, gender does not impact an social intelligence and career

Gender no bar for career or social inteligence: If you're an able worker, gender doesn't even come into the picture. There shoudn't be extra accolades to a woman employee just because she’s a woman and has achieved something and treat all employees equal. By taking your work very seriously you can change your chances of success in business, at the same time eliminating gender bias.

Equal opportunities: We see women being exposed to the same environment, there may be some areas where it requires little work but given the current scanario the condition is improving at fast pace. And instances of bias are unlikely to be seen.

Social intelligence is something which is not inherited, rather acquired: Relating social intelligence to gender is wrong , because it is not something your born with, it is a skill which we gain with passage of time. There are ways in which you can acquire social intelligence and upgrade it, hence the question of men being more socially intelligent sounds naive.

For: Yes, Gender impacts an indivisuals social intelligence and career

Societal mindset: Gender schema theory states that children learn about gender roles and cultural expectations from their surroundings and from an early age parents ,schools and even textbooks mould kids reasoning into the gender biased world such as gender specific colours and toys or to treat boys and girls differently. There kids tend to keep on adapting to the mindset later on creating bias in choosing career as well as social intelligence. Healthy adult men are expected to work, but the decision to enter the labor force is presented as a choice for girls. It’s a stereotype that women are less socially intelligent than men. But on the contaray women are an avid victim of discrimination, society practices which reduced their exposure to the outside world, making their life experince reduced to the indoor chores. There have been instances of exploitation in corporate working space which make women reconsider their options, hence limiting the career options of females.

Less access to resources: The reason for male-female differences in career choice is due to the existing bias in providing gender specific oppotunities which is often disguised just like hiring women for human resource profiles, nannies, teachers and men for analytics profile, drivers, engineers etc. which makes women think narrow mindedly about career options and limiting their choices to the gender specific jobs.

Responsibilities and commitments: Women are often refused a job opportunity due to marriage and kids, thinking that it would lead to lessor productivity and would induce baggage to the firm.

Self-efficacy perceptions: Another reason career-related self-efficacy perceptions, or beliefs in one’s ability to be successful in a wide range of career pursuits. Women have less access to the types of experiences necessary for developing strong beliefs in their abilities to master career-related tasks, particularly tasks in male-dominated occupations and majors.

Lastly, we'd like to say that the gender bias has been reduced across sectors but is not completely eradicated, we have to provide women the opportunity to participate in the social engagements and decision making.

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